


the heart's own ruling

by stargirls



Series: the night shift [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Big mood tbh, M/M, connor is a police detective and markus is an artist & social activist, north hates assholes and loves justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 11:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15217745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargirls/pseuds/stargirls
Summary: It's hard to build an active career out of night shifts and misdemeanors, but Detective Connor Anderson is making it work. That all changes when a vigilante vandal sets him up with the man of his dreams—and all in one incredibly bizarre, eventful evening.





	the heart's own ruling

**Author's Note:**

> i have no excuses at this point.
> 
> rk1000 is a _really_ good ship, everybody. connor is gay, markus is bi, and i hope david cage chokes on a moldy panini.
> 
> hope everybody's staying safe this summer! drink water, wear sunscreen and sunglasses when you go outside, and if you live in los angeles, godspeed. enjoy!

For reasons that are nothing short of miraculous, it’s actually a quiet night at the DPD—until Officer Wilson’s perp arrives.

She sits at the rickety table with a stubborn set to her jaw and flecks of paint clinging to the tips of her nails. The newly opened criminal record on Connor’s tablet lists her as _North Durand_ , part-time community college student, full-time social activist, although she refuses to list the protests she’s been involved in. That’s telling enough. Officer Wilson had stopped him at the door to the interrogation room and warned him that she’d been extremely reluctant to give out any personal information, much less talk about why she’s been detained. “Then again,” she’d added, “that’s what we’ve got you for. Go get ’em, Negotiator.”

One time. Connor told the precinct _one_ time about his dreams of being a hostage negotiator—after copious amounts of caffeine, at that—and they haven’t let it go since.

He supposes it has something to do with his age. Being the youngest detective at the precinct means he’s subject to more than a bit of friendly ribbing on a daily basis, as well as being saddled with the tasks that no one else wants. Tonight, judging by Officer Wilson’s self-satisfied smirk, that task is questioning the young vandal pulled off the streets of Detroit. He doesn’t mind it all that much, but when his coworkers are loudly making weekend plans in the room adjacent—well, that might be just a little on the nose.

Nevertheless, Connor’s job is to find out why exactly North Durand did what she did, and he’s never been one to do things half-assed. He lets the door swing shut behind him, and only then does she look up from studying the table’s stainless steel surface. She’s white, feminine-presenting and identifying, 5’5”. Conventionally attractive, Connor notes, although it’s not like he’d know much about that. If her dark vest and beanie are any indication, this isn’t her first time doling out personal retribution.

She also lights up the second she lays eyes on Connor, which is… unexpected, to say the least.

“Can I have my one phone call?” she says.

Connor blinks. “That’s…”

“I know my rights,” says North Durand, with a surprising lack of defensiveness in her voice. “Can I just use my phone call, real quick? It’ll be two minutes. I have someone who can bail me out.”

Police procedure flashes and blurs in front of Connor’s eyes. Sometimes having a near-eidetic memory is useful; other times, when he’s trying his best to improvise, it’s a tad stressful for his tastes. “Usually that’s not allowed until you’re charged,” he says. “And you haven’t really—”

“Okay,” North interrupts, “but I did it. Definitely. Malicious destruction of private property, that’s what the officer said. How much is that going to be? For bail, I mean?”

Numbers. There’s something Connor can latch onto in this whirlwind of information. “The car was a 2037 M-OP X9,” he says, automatically. “Damage was aesthetic and minimal, and the owner isn’t looking to press charges, so… seven hundred, plus a state fine of five hundred if you want to forgo jail time and go on probation. But that’s not a decision I would make without consulting a—”

North shakes her head. “Nope. Seven hundred. Sounds perfect. Can I have my phone call now?”

This, Connor decides, must be what whiplash feels like. He wonders briefly if this is some kind of post-Academy evaluation, and he’s just completely oblivious. “Yes,” he says, hesitantly, “but we _will_ need some more information before you go. If you’re alright with that, then…”

Trailing off isn’t his style, but he’s become very quickly accustomed to letting this girl interrupt him. Of course, this is the one time she doesn’t—she just stares at him expectantly. “Then I can take you to make the call,” Connor finishes, and nods to the door. “The phone’s in the hallway.”

He takes her outside and draws a few strange looks from the officers standing at the water cooler, but thankfully, there aren’t any offhand comments. Connor watches as North expertly dials a number, then rocks back on the balls of her feet as it rings loudly enough for him to make it out.

“Markus!” she says, when the ringing breaks off. “Listen, I got arrested, I’m at the downtown precinct and I need you to come bail me out, okay? Bail is seven hundred bucks. Don’t ask questions. Dress nice.”

She hangs up, cutting off what sounds like a muffled protest on the other end. Connor hopes he doesn’t look too much like a deer in the headlights when she turns to face him, but something tells him his efforts to be pokerfaced are just about futile at this point.

“That was Markus,” she says, gesturing vaguely to the phone. “Markus Manfred, Carl Manfred’s son. Do you know him?”

The name _Manfred_ spawns a host of headlines and event listings in Connor’s mind. He narrows it to _Markus Manfred_ and one stands out in his mind, as bright and clear as if he’d seen it the day preceding— _MANFRED SON DOES MURAL FOR ANTI-FASCISM RALLY_. “He’s an activist?”

“Activist and a painter, like his dad.” North glances over her shoulder as he leads her back to the interrogation room, like she’s watching him for some sort of reaction. “Do you like art at all?”

Connor hasn’t the faintest idea. Since his graduation from the Academy, art hasn’t exactly been a priority. “I suppose so,” is what he settles on.

“You’d like Markus’s stuff. Everyone does.” She takes a seat and watches him meaningfully. “You know, we met at Pride a couple years ago. He was really funny and smart and interesting to talk to, and we’ve been ride or die ever since. Loyal, too,” she adds. “Not just anyone would come bail me out like he is.”

Granted, it hadn’t sounded like she’d given this Markus much choice. Connor clears his throat and pushes any irrelevant musings out of his head. All strange behavior aside, he’s just extracted a confession in record time, so there’s that. At least he’s attempting to live up to his nickname.

 _Confession_ , of course, is putting it loosely. She’d been caught red-handed at the scene, carving the beginnings of what would have been an obscenity into the side of the victim’s X9. The ticket, as Connor’s mentor would say, is figuring out the _why_ of the situation. Good detectives try to understand dissatisfaction at its roots, and no amount of menial assignments or night shifts will discourage him from attempting to do so.

“The car belonged to a Brett Sadler,” he says. “Do you know him?”

North scoffs. “ _Know_ is a strong word. He trails people in his car and says horrible things when they’re out on the street. He followed a friend of mine for three blocks, just shouting at him. Josh wouldn’t do anything about it,” she adds. “He’s too nice for that. But I’m not.”

She sits back, letting her words ruminate, then says, “Markus probably wouldn’t approve of my methods. He’s all for social change, but he also really respects the law. I actually think you two could have a lot in common.”

Connor flips his stylus between his fingers and looks down at the tablet. There are definitely ways to respond to her without pretending as if she’s not bringing up Markus every few seconds, but he’s too burnt out to consider the possibilities. “So you tracked this man down.”

“He parks in a public garage,” says North. “It wasn’t that hard.”

If Connor believed in such a thing, he would call what had happened to her a matter of bad luck. It was pure coincidence that a beat cop had stopped in to charge his Vespa at the same time she had been hard at work. “You keyed his car to get revenge, then?”

North drums her nails against the table. They’re acrylic, Connor notes, and surprisingly well-kept. “I keyed his car because I wanted to show him that people won’t take his harassment lying down. You can’t just do things without consequence in this society, especially if you’re a middle-aged white man in a cheap luxury car. They need to be held accountable more than anyone else. It was a little justice, that’s all.”

“Vigilante justice,” Connor corrects, drily. “Unfortunately not sanctioned by the state of Michigan.”

She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t try to counter him. “Anyway. You’ve got everything you need to know, right?”

He does. North Durand knows a surprising amount about police procedure, considering she’s never been arrested before. She straightens up at his affirmation, and if it were possible to verbally shift gears, that would be exactly what she does. “Great. So you’re going to keep an eye on me until my friend gets here, right?”

“Right,” says Connor. “You’ll need to come with me to a holding cell, and when your friend gets here, we can discuss bail.”

A smile tugs at North’s lips. It wouldn’t be Connor’s first reaction to the phrase _holding cell_ , but then again, she’s proven herself not to be the average perpetrator. “Sure,” she says, and actually beats Connor to standing up from the table. “You know, I actually feel pretty bad, calling Markus out here in the middle of the night. Even when he’s really busy, he can find time for the people he cares about. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

She goes on as Connor escorts her through the door. There’s a different cluster of officers at the water cooler, now, but they give him the same _what-the-fuck-is-Anderson-doing-now_ glare that he’s exhaustively familiar with. At this point in the night, Connor doesn’t blame them. “He’s always busy, what with his art gallery and organizing protests and everything. I always tell him he needs to get out more. Try dating or something. You know what I mean, right?”

“What,” says Connor, distractedly, fishing for his access card. “Dating?”

“Yeah,” comes the casual reply. “Like, are you single, or…”

Just as Connor grasps at the card in his pocket, he fumbles and drops it immediately. His mouth opens, then closes without having made a sound. “Am I…”

“Single,” North repeats. “I mean, I’m sorry if I thought wrong, I just assumed a police detective or whatever wouldn’t have much down time on his hands.”

Usually, when Connor asks a clarifying question, it’s because he’s floundering in the wake of someone else’s sarcasm. It just goes to shows how far removed tonight has been from every other day of his life. “You’re asking if I’m… single.”

North nods, and Connor decides that if this is an Academy evaluation, he’s going to have words with them about their choice of administrator. “I’m not in a relationship,” he says, and finally gets ahold of his card to open the cell in front of him. “But I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“I was just wondering,” comes the airy reply. She steps through the glass door without any prompting and cracks her knuckles, then leans forward, straining to see down the hall. “You can’t see the door from here, can you?”

“No, but I can let you know when your friend is here.”

“It’s okay,” she says, and actually sounds like she means it. “You’ll know him when you see him, anyway. He’s pretty hard to miss.”

* * *

She’s not wrong.

Connor is retrieving some old reports from the front desk when a gust of cool air sweeps through the precinct lobby. He turns, startled, and is immediately grateful for the room’s sudden drop in temperature, because the most beautiful man he’s ever seen is standing in the foyer. Tiny droplets of water streak his face and mingle with his dark freckles like stars, and he pops the high collar of his jacket, sending a small shower of rain onto the tile. If all of this wasn’t bad enough, he then immediately shoots an apologetic glance at the floor, biting his lip in a way that doesn’t have any right to be as perfect as it is. _He’s guilty_ , Connor thinks, followed immediately by _he’s considerate_ , and how does that have any place in his roster of objective observations?

The man makes his way to the front desk and offers a soft smile to their unflappable receptionist, who suddenly looks more flustered than Connor has ever seen her. “Hi,” he says. “Markus Manfred, I’m here to pick up a friend of mine.”

Well, shit.

North’s erratic behavior is starting to make a troubling amount of sense.

“Mr. Manfred,” says Connor, and immediately regrets opening his mouth, because his knees go weak the instant Markus looks up. He swallows and holds out a hand, because as unprofessional as he might be feeling right now, that’s not going to stop him from keeping up the facade. “Detective Anderson. I processed your friend—North Durand?”

“That’s her.” Markus steps around the desk and takes Connor’s hand, and a flood of new stimuli hits Connor like a sledgehammer. Markus’s palms are cool—from the rain, he suspects—and worn with calluses. Artist’s hands. He has a tiny lisp that smoothes over the edges of his sentences and makes them fluid. His right eye is a vibrant blue; his left, a vivid green. _Heterochromia iridum: a difference in coloration of the iris._ Incredibly rare and, Connor thinks, incredibly striking.

“Nice to… meet you,” he manages, and hopes fervently that none of his coworkers are within earshot, because if even one of them catches him fumbling, they’ll never let him live it down. “If you’ll follow me, we can get your payment processed. If you want to pay bail, that is.”

Markus drops his hand, and Connor realizes with a rush of embarrassment that he’s been clinging to it all this time. “Of course,” he says, and then, “So what did she do, anyway?”

“Malicious destruction of property,” says Connor, without thinking. Markus’s expression contorts slightly in confusion, and he corrects himself as he steps behind the desk. “She, ah, keyed a man’s car. Evidently she was attempting vigilante justice.”

Even Markus’s sigh is beautiful; full-bodied. He drags a hand across the back of his neck and tips his head. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “She means well. Really, she does. Her passion for justice is pretty much unmatched… it’s just the way she goes about it that needs a bit of work.”

There’s something about this man that just radiates sympathy and composure. Connor’s never met anyone quite like him. He tries to focus on bringing up the bail charge, but it’s a little difficult to do so when Markus is right there, watching him with those hypnotic eyes, making him feel like a second-day rookie with enough technical savvy to operate a toaster. “It’s alright,” he says. “It was good of you to come out here, what with how late it is.”

And now he’s making _small talk_ , as if all of this isn’t out of character enough.

Markus smiles again. It’s _not_ flirting, Connor tells himself, resolutely; it’s common courtesy, and nothing more. “It’s good of you to work the night shift. And I was up anyway, so really, it wasn’t that much trouble. I’m used to her getting into it,” he adds, with a tired nod towards the holding cells. “I shouldn’t keep bailing her out—literally, in this case—but I owe her a lot.”

The charge blinks to life in front of him, and he puts his hand flat on the desk to confirm it. Markus’s knuckles are tinged a reddish-gold; faded, which suggests a persistent formula, and without the telltale metallic sheen of an M-OP vehicle. He’d been painting. Connor is filled with a sudden, juvenile desire to ask about it.

Instead, he accepts the payment and gestures to the hall adjacent. “She’s right over here.”

He doesn’t even have to look over his shoulder—he can _feel_ the receptionist’s eyes on them as he shows Markus to the holding cells. So much for keeping his coworkers in the dark. North is standing, cheek pressed to the glass, but she jerks back as soon as they appear in the entryway. “Hi, Markus,” she says, without a single iota of guilt in her voice. “Thanks.”

“Josh is going to have an aneurysm,” says Markus, but his tone is light. He watches as Connor unlocks the cell door, then puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Detective, for letting me come by. Hopefully you won’t be seeing either of us anytime soon.”

North rolls her eyes, this time hard enough to make Connor’s own temples twinge. “You know,” she says, giving Markus a look that couldn’t be more pointed if it tried, “it’s very possible that I might get in trouble again. And if I do, it would be great to have Detective Anderson’s number just to check in, wouldn’t it? Just to call and make sure everything’s okay?”

Markus blinks. He looks as if he’s struggling for words, and for once, Connor can relate. “Um, that would be…”

“Great,” says North, slowly. “It would be _great_ , right, Markus?”

“Right,” Markus blurts. He’s not exactly the picture of composure anymore, but it’s beautiful in a different way— _authentic_ , Connor thinks. “If Detective Anderson is okay with that, I mean.”

Detective Anderson is, in fact, very okay with that. “Sure,” says Connor, and accepts Markus’s phone with what he hopes isn’t an extremely conspicuous blush creeping up the back of his neck. The receptionist is still watching them, and he’s not sure if the expression on her face is jealousy or delight. He types in his number without dropping the phone, which all things considered is an achievement for the evening, and hands it over. North observes the proceedings without even attempting to hide her smirk.

“Well,” she says, once Markus has pocketed his phone again. “I think now we can go, right, Markus?”

“Right,” says Markus, again. He still looks a little dazed, but he seems to regain his bearings and offers Connor another life-ruining smile, and now, without a doubt, Connor knows his blush is showing. He’ll have to bribe the receptionist with fresh coffee grounds for a month to keep this under wraps. “It was really nice to meet you, Detective.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” Connor echoes, as North takes Markus by the arm and starts to pull him towards the door. His heart is racing and all he can do is stare, and any other day, he’d consider that a problem.

This, Connor decides, must be what a crush feels like.

He doesn’t mind it all that much.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @deviantexe and on twitter @stellarlesbian!


End file.
